I thought you were dead: a story from Vietnam
To count the number of personal stories from any war would be impossible at best. But of all the wars our country has fought, none have left such a devastating effect on its Veterans as the war in Vietnam.
See, when our men and women came home from their tours of duty, they were met not by compassion, rather by insults and apathy. Wounds of the body may heal, but those of the spirit last forever.
Dan Kouba and the Journeymen, a band from Hillsboro, Wisconsin, recently recorded a new single called “Name Tag”, that pays homage to the special bond all Veterans have for their comrades, especially those they served with in combat.
With Kouba writing a majority of the band’s songs, a story unfolded this past summer at his 50th high school reunion. One that would grow into something bigger than a conversation piece, but rather a single that the band would produce at the hands of Nashville, Tennessee’s Country music producing legend Bobby G. Rice.
Duane Bloor, who the song “Name Tag” was written about, served in the Vietnam war with the Combat Quick Reactionary Forces from 1969 to 1970. Duane and his comrades were the soldiers that would perform search and rescue missions in hot zones.
Bloor’s valor and complete selflessness in combat, would find him receiving the Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, and two Purple Hearts. While many would see him as a hero, Bloor’s deep humility says otherwise.
The single “Name Tag”, was released nationally and internationally on Friday, January 10, 2020. On that day, the band gathered along with Hillsboro Vietnam Veteran Duane Bloor and his wife Mary, at WRCO Radio in Richland Center, Wisconsin.
Facilitated by WRCO host Phill Nee, band members, Dan Kouba, Joe Havlik, Joe Sukana, and John Guelig (due to a prior commitment keyboardist and instrumentalist Mary Siefert could not be present), spent an hour talking about their latest single “Name Tag”. Bobby G. Rice joining in via phone, offered his role in the recording of the single this past December. (Listen to the interview in its entirety)
Prior to the release and interview at WRCO, I had the extreme honor to sit down and have an amazing human interaction with Duane Bloor, his wife Mary, Dan Kouba, and Joe Havlik in the Bloor’s home. What happened next was an experience that will always stand out in my years of writing.
I normally would not publish an interview almost verbatim, but after reading the transcript, I was beyond moved. How could I capture the emotion and human interaction of this story? Well, it would be impossible, not to mention a disservice in honoring those involved.
We encourage our readership to take time and view the video below showing Duane and his wife listening to the single “Name Tag” produced in Nashville, Tennessee.
The band has announced they will be donating a portion of each sale of their single to the Gary Sinise Foundation. The actors foundation serves our nation by honoring our defenders, veterans, first responders, their families, and those in need. They do this by creating and supporting unique programs designed to entertain, educate, inspire, strengthen, and build communities.
Name Tag, the interview
Dan Kouba- “It was my 50th class reunion. In June of 2019, I had a classmate Dan Rynes that left when we were freshmen, call me and ask if we were going to have a class reunion. I said we were. He asked if he could come. He said, ‘I liked your class more than the one I ended up in.’ I was on the committee and ended up getting him an invite. The night of the class reunion, a gal who was in my class, Mary Bloor (whose maiden name is Mary Haase) married a guy Duane Bloor that was older than us, much older. (Kouba noticed two men that greeted each other, one being Bloor) When these two guys came together, I distinctly heard one say to the other, ‘I thought you were dead’. Then, they were standing there hugging. I’m a very nosy guy and had to find out what this was all about. Come to find out, the last time they had seen each other, one was rescuing the other out of the rice patties of Vietnam.
Another girl in my class insisted that everyone wear a name tag. By the way, when you are out of school for 50 years, it is a tremendous idea to have a name tag, because you have no idea who the hell is in your class and who isn’t. They do change in looks.
I had known this guy my entire life (Mary’s husband Duane). I had heard stories of what he had gone through in Vietnam, but he’s a very humble man, Duane Bloor. I just wanted to honor all of these vets, that got kicked around when they first came home from Vietnam, the way they should have been honored. Therefore, I wrote the song ‘Name Tag’, which is strictly dealing with two guys who got together after 50 years and rekindling an old relationship.
I came over and talked to Duane because I needed some inside information, plus, I needed his okay. I didn’t want to go any further on this song if I didn’t have his okay. I got his okay. That’s when he explained to me the 9th Calvary. After we put the song to a much faster tempo, we made it more of a rock beat, and also put in a turn around the like old Doors use to have with the organ, and then later on with the guitar. The song just seemed to flow. Joe, the guy that taught me how to play the guitar four years ago (Joe Havlik), he more or less took it from that point on, and got it to Bobby G. Rice.”
Joe Havlik- “Dan has written a number of songs previously, 30 some odd. Dan would write a song, and Dan would say, ‘This is the best song I’ve ever written.’ I told him that I would never tell him, ‘This is the best song you have ever written’, because I don’t think it has been written yet. He came up with this one, and this one is probably more powerful than anything he has done before. Maybe the best, but that will remain to be seen.
We hooked up with a promoter in Nashville by the name of Bobby G. Rice and sent the song to him, because I felt that if we were going to do this song, that maybe we ought to do it in Nashville with some Nashville pickers and have it done in that arena.
Bobby has been a big help to us and WRCO has been very good to us. They have been playing our stuff on the radio for the last couple years. We wanted to honor them also. We talked, and said ‘lets do this’. This was shortly before Christmas when we went to Nashville.
We talked to Bobby G. Rice, who previously promoted a couple of songs of ours. We had minimal success with that, so we wanted to go back and do it again. We said ‘this song is so powerful, can we add another promoter?’ Today, there are two promoters on this song, and tomorrow, we will probably bring a third one on board. I acquaint this to rolling a snowball downhill. It’s difficult to get the snowball rolling downhill, but once it gets rolling, with the power of this song, we feel it going viral. The more promotion we have, the faster the snowball is going to roll.”
Dan- “Bobby G. Rice is connected. He brings in a guy who was lead guitar for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and a keyboard player who played for Conway Twitty. The gal that sang backup on this song was absolutely amazing.
When this guy from the lead guitar was sitting there, and this is probably what affected my wife who was along also, he looks at me and said, ‘Did you write this?’ I said, ‘yea, I did’. He said, ‘This is good, this is Grammy material.’ That really struck me. This song is about a local guy in a class reunion. I’m hoping that it affects millions.
See, Duane had a brother named Don, and he used to work for me. As a matter of fact, one day, he took his shirt off (Don was shot in the back in Vietnam with an AK-47). That’s where I came up with the four holes in the small of his back. I couldn’t believe what that guy’s body looked like. That’s where the story actually comes from. Danny Rynes and Duane never carried each other out.”
Duane Bloor- “I never knew Dan until that day at the reunion. My brother came in (to Vietnam) just as I was leaving. I wrote him and told him I would extend so he wouldn’t have to come over there. He said, ‘Do what you want. I’m going to volunteer regardless of what you do.’ I wasn’t in a real nice spot, so I was pretty tickled when he said that.
He was there for three months, and got shot four times in the back with an AK. He had a sucking chest wound. They had passed him over once as dead. He was in a company, and the medics were going through to see who was alive. He couldn’t say anything because his mouth and throat was full of blood. He could see them guys. They passed him and moved on to someone else. They said, ‘this guy is gone’. One of them looked back, and he (Don) wiggled his finger, as that is all he could do, I guess. They said, ‘This guy back here is still alive.’ They went back, and like they always do, wrapped him in a poncho for a sucking chest wound and got him in a medivac chopper. He was in very bad shape. I extended my stay out of love for my brother (one year younger). A lot of people extended their stay without telling.
When I was at the reunion for the ’69 people, my wife was a graduate of ’69, it kind of all started from there. Dan came over and got me and introduced me to Dan Rynes. I didn’t know Dan before, but we had both been in Vietnam.
We got talking about where we were when I was over there, what our MOS’s were, and they were the same. We got talking a little more, and come to find out, we were both 11 Bravos which is infantry. We were both QRF’s (Quick Reactionary Force). From there, we listened to what the other guy was saying because we had so much to talk about. It’s like anything else, when you are interested in something, you tend to listen a little more. We clicked right off the bat once we found out that we did the same thing because there was nothing pretty about it. I think that day we even hugged. I consider him my friend now.
I would really like to thank Dan and his band for getting this going. I didn’t know what to think when Dan first talked about it. I didn’t want this about me. He says I will be representing the vets. Anytime I can do that, I am proud to do it.
Hopefully, this will all turn out good. What I like about this whole thing, is that it gets the vets talking to one another. It’s a big step forward. A lot of people are still hiding on the inside and that is destroying them. It destroys their relationships, their families. You gotta let it go and you have to tell your families what you did. Whatever is bothering you at the time, you have to share it with them.
If it wouldn’t have been for my wife, Mary, I wouldn’t be here today. I know that, the way I was when I came home. Thankfully, she stuck with me through it all somehow. I’ll never forget.
When I first got back, I kind of felt sorry for myself. I knew I had changed, but I didn’t want to admit it. I drank a lot. Once she got me convinced that I will never forget it, that was the king pin. She said ‘you will just have to live with it’.
I stopped drinking at that time, which was a big step. It just made me wallow in it. After that, she got me on the straightened arrow, and I thank God she did. I haven’t drunk for 35 years. I did it to save our marriage. You can only deal with that for so long.
As far as the war goes, I look at it different. When I was there fighting, I truly felt I was trying to keep communism from spreading to the south. Nobody could have told me different. Sometimes, after the years go by, some of that changes, but it sure didn’t.
At that time, my grand kids would see pictures of me, and they would ask me who won the war. I would tell them, nobody wins the war, everybody loses. I’ve told them that several times. I think today I am well-adjusted. I don’t think I’ll ever get over it.”
Thoughts on War
Duane- “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, hopefully they are treating the people who have been going into Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq and they’ve done two, three, I’ve even heard four tours. Those people are going to need a lot of help when they come back.
You can’t send people into battle that much and not expect to have problems. I know they are short on military since they made it a voluntary army. Those poor people, I hope they learned something from Vietnam when treating them. When we got back, they just said, ‘well, thanks for your service and have a great life.’ That was my debriefing. They didn’t even tell us about all the protesting going on. We didn’t know that until we got to the airports.”
Mary Bloor - “A lot of nightmares, reliving what he had already gone through.”
Duane- “I was 20 years old when I went in. My wife knew how I was before I went and she put up with me when I came back. I think I’m more bitter and harder than I was at 20 years old because of what I did and what I saw and how it affected me.
At first, you don’t think about it. You just want to do your year and come home. But after you see your friends shot, killed, half of their body blown away (Silence).
Our daily routine was digging pilots out of aircraft that had been burned. A lot of times we had to break their bones to put them in a body bag. Sometimes we knew these guys. The smell of a burnt body is the most horrible smell that you will never forget, a smell that makes me sick to my stomach. Some days we would be on two or three of these missions digging them out. Most of times we would be there before the NVA (North Vietnamese Army), but they would be dead from the crash. The highlight of my day was the mail call.
The JP4 fuel explodes when it hits. We dealt with helicopters. That’s how we were put in and extracted. There were 21 of us. We didn’t have a lot of fire support. For all the things that went on, we did a good job. The aftermath is the problem. You turn bitter after seeing your friends that you’ve been serving with, seeing them shot up or dead. You feel like you want to get even. After that, it doesn’t bother you to kill someone.”
After the War
Mary- “I wasn’t there when he came home. I was in Chicago.”
Duane- “I was in uniform when I came home. I was in uniform in Chicago, although I wouldn’t have been, but I didn’t have civies (civilian clothes). There weren’t protests in Chicago though.”
Mary- “It was mostly college kids that protested. I didn’t tell him about it. I wish I would have.”
Duane- “I had eggs thrown at me. I started crying like a kid. I felt like they took my heart out of me.
God, I talked to him a lot. I made him a lot of promises when I was over there. I got out of there. He always got me out of there. I always believed in God and I still do. You don’t really see how much you believe in him, until you think you are going to die. Even a non-believer that says he is a non-believer, I think, will talk to God when they think they are going to die. I think subconsciously, we are all a believer.
Desert Storm, I was glad to see them treated the way they were. I thought the government and people had learned the way Vietnam went. People had learned that it wasn’t right (the way Veterans were treated after Vietnam). I was glad to see that they were welcomed home as heroes.”
About Family
Duane- “I feel I have a role to play to show them what love is. They all think I was a type of hero for serving in the Army. I certainly don’t feel that way.
They ask questions. I think my love for them is more than if I hadn’t had the Vietnam experience. I appreciate what I have and I hope they do.”
(If kids would be drafted again) “It wouldn’t bother me. If they feel like honoring their country and going to fight when they were asked, I couldn’t deny that. My son came to me at 17 and wanted to join the guards in high school. The experience and the discipline, the things that go along with life, I think everyone should do it.”
Mary- “It’s not good, I can tell you that. Horrendous. I could write a book about it. It means nightmares, PTSD in the highest level. There were times he would act like he was there, not sleeping, but it was daytime. When he came home, he was not the same person that he was before. He was raised in Mount Tabor, nothing there but a bar and a feed mill. Our dates consisted of watching him play baseball. Going from that, it is hard.
Some days our letters were gone through. They went to Cambodia, and they didn’t want us knowing that. Some of it was censored and gone through and blocked out. Some of it went through. I did know he was in Cambodia. For a while, he had a CBS news crew with him. Those guys were scared to death. We have a copy of that. They called me in the morning and told me that he was going to be on. He was on twice that day, 7 in the morning and 6 at night. It was Walter Kronkite. They showed him walking through the jungle. Our good friend Craig was shot in that clip, and they showed all that. That didn’t do me much good. He (Craig) got shot and made it. He writes books now.”
Duane- “He wrote the book “Acceptable Loss”. He was our squad leader.”
Mary- “They called and told me it was going to be on. I didn’t know why they were calling me. You always think the worst, but that was what it was- he was going to be on the news.”
Duane- “They (family) pretended that nothing was wrong, and with time everything would be fine.
I think the whole thing has hardened her as well. I wouldn’t see a head shrink or anything. I figured I could get through any problems. She went and talked to one, because I wouldn’t.”
Mary- “Had I not known him when he was that young, and I was that young, probably not. I knew who he really was and what caused him to be that way.”
Duane- “She saved the day one time. People would ask how many I killed. I left and went to my grandma’s. I got my .22 and can of soup and went down in the woods. I wanted to kill a squirrel. I never thought of killing myself.”
Mary- “Everyone thought he was going to kill himself. The cops were there, my parents came. I don’t know how they heard it. The cop asked where his girlfriend was. I said ‘with all of these people here, he will never come out.’ The police made everyone leave.”
Duane- “That was just one thing that she has done. I might have been a little off by saying I was never going to end it all. Later on, she kept pounding it in my head what I had to live for.”
Mary- “I was always trying to tell him things that he needed to be around for.”
Hindsight
What today’s Duane would say to 20-year-old Duane- “I’d do it all the same.” What today’s Mary would say to Mary back then- “I’d do it all the same too. (pause) I would tell him not to go. He would have had to go anyway.”
About Name Tag
Duane- “I was just waiting for the call. With the song, I think you (Dan) nailed it. I have a hard time listening to it without choking up a little bit.”
Mary “I think he did a great job with it.”
Duane- “I really have to take my hat off to these guys.”
Dan- “Havlik has been my salvation. Finding that guitar. Music has truly changed my life. I had 82 employees. I wasn’t the guy I am today. There are a lot of people who still know me as that old guy. My goal was to learn the guitar and sing Wayfaring Stranger to my grandchildren. I was so nervous to play in front of my 5 grandchildren. It wouldn’t have mattered if I bombed, they would have still loved it. It has been a journey. I don’t have PTSD, but I think it has changed me.”
Duane- “I would like thank you (Dan} for doing this. I hope it helps other veterans as well.”
Mary- “The most important thing to remember for veterans that are coming home and having problems, is you are never going to forget it. You have to learn to deal with it. Always try to find something to look forward to. Don’t think back all the time. That causes problems. There is always something to look forward to.”
I figured after reading the interview, hopefully our readership understands my choice in allowing the interview to tell the story. A story among countless others, from a place in Southeast Asia, called Vietnam.
The single “Name Tag” may be purchased/downloaded at https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/dankouba.
For more information on the band visit DanKoubaandtheJourneymen.com.
